Name: Jonathan Montanaro
Course: EDC 484- General Science learner map
Description
This class is a 9th grade General Science class at Coventry High School. The class is made up of 24 students, 12 boys and 12 girls all mainly middle to upper level students. This classroom contains no IEPs, ESL, 504, or any students with behavioral issues.
Learner Map
(all of the notes made of students were responses from when students were asked to write 3 things about themselves. If I deemed it inappropriate to share any of the information they provided with others, it was not included in this picture)
Reflections
1. Describe key trends that you discovered for this class?
One thing I noticed with this class is that they're extremely well behaved and follow directions very well. The student's all, although a little shy at first, quickly opened up to me and began participating regularly in a classroom environment that was a secure and welcoming one. Due to a lot of groupwork activities and labwork that has been done throughout the year, I think this has helped facilitate a learning environment that is very accepting and students can feel at ease when sharing answers. Because of this welcoming environment, students can sometimes feel a little too comfortable and can get chatty or off topic as students often do especially at this age, so it's important to stay on top of this and make sure it does not become an issue.
2. Describe the needs, interests, and characteristics of your learners that surprised you.
A quick trend I noticed about this class after quickly surveying them and talking before and after class is that many of them are involved in sports, like to watch sports, or are very athletic. Although not all of the students in the class share these attributes, knowing this about the majority of the class could be useful tools when designing classroom activities and labs. Another thing I noticed was that the students have some difficulties picking out the important aspects of a reading whether reading a sentence or a paragraph. Even on a daily basis taking notes during lecture, students feel the need to write down every single thing that is presented to them. This is a skill I hope to work on throughout teaching this class. A lot of students also seem interested in college and what college classes are like, so I can use this to my advantage while teaching these students by telling students what is expected of them and what strides we can take now to better prepare them for college. In particular, a couple of individual students also stood out to me. Walker, a student in the back row has some difficulty focusing but when he applies himself is extremely bright. During my time in this classroom involving Walker into the daily discussion will not only benefit him, but the rest of the students in the class as well from his insightful answers. There is also a student Devin in the background who is extremely talkative, but is very respectful towards me and his other teachers. Incorporating him into the lessons can help minimize the distractions he may make and help keep him on task talking about what we are learning about rather than other topics that may not apply to the classroom.
3. How will these characteristics affect the way you plan, teach, and manage this class?
I think that I can really incorporate things I learned from this activity into my everyday teaching with this class. With so many athletes, their learning style seems to be more hands-on oriented. In planning lessons for this class, I'll try to incorporate a variety of hands-on activities that will help increase the effectiveness of the lessons and grasp students interests into what were doing. We did a slinky lab to model mechanical waves, and the students really responded well to this. Because of the secure learning environment that had been established by my cooperating teacher, I'll also incorporate a lot of groupwork/group activities into my lessons. I feel like students learn best when they can help each other construct their own learning, and working together is a characteristic that will not only help apply to science but anything that they may do outside of the classroom. Lastly, in my everyday lectures I'd like to use powerpoints to help give students notes and important definitions/concepts that may suppliment the activities we do. In these powerpoints, I am going to give students full sentences in which they'll need to pick out the important words and concepts from each sentence. At first, this is something we can work on together and I hope to gradually improve these note-taking skills of the students which will help them in all of their classes later on down the road.
Name: Jonathan Montanaro
Course: EDC 484- General Science learner map
Description
This class is a 9th grade General Science class at Coventry High School. The class is made up of 24 students, 12 boys and 12 girls all mainly middle to upper level students. This classroom contains no IEPs, ESL, 504, or any students with behavioral issues.
Learner Map
(all of the notes made of students were responses from when students were asked to write 3 things about themselves. If I deemed it inappropriate to share any of the information they provided with others, it was not included in this picture)
Reflections
1. Describe key trends that you discovered for this class?
One thing I noticed with this class is that they're extremely well behaved and follow directions very well. The student's all, although a little shy at first, quickly opened up to me and began participating regularly in a classroom environment that was a secure and welcoming one. Due to a lot of groupwork activities and labwork that has been done throughout the year, I think this has helped facilitate a learning environment that is very accepting and students can feel at ease when sharing answers. Because of this welcoming environment, students can sometimes feel a little too comfortable and can get chatty or off topic as students often do especially at this age, so it's important to stay on top of this and make sure it does not become an issue.
2. Describe the needs, interests, and characteristics of your learners that surprised you.
A quick trend I noticed about this class after quickly surveying them and talking before and after class is that many of them are involved in sports, like to watch sports, or are very athletic. Although not all of the students in the class share these attributes, knowing this about the majority of the class could be useful tools when designing classroom activities and labs. Another thing I noticed was that the students have some difficulties picking out the important aspects of a reading whether reading a sentence or a paragraph. Even on a daily basis taking notes during lecture, students feel the need to write down every single thing that is presented to them. This is a skill I hope to work on throughout teaching this class. A lot of students also seem interested in college and what college classes are like, so I can use this to my advantage while teaching these students by telling students what is expected of them and what strides we can take now to better prepare them for college. In particular, a couple of individual students also stood out to me. Walker, a student in the back row has some difficulty focusing but when he applies himself is extremely bright. During my time in this classroom involving Walker into the daily discussion will not only benefit him, but the rest of the students in the class as well from his insightful answers. There is also a student Devin in the background who is extremely talkative, but is very respectful towards me and his other teachers. Incorporating him into the lessons can help minimize the distractions he may make and help keep him on task talking about what we are learning about rather than other topics that may not apply to the classroom.
3. How will these characteristics affect the way you plan, teach, and manage this class?
I think that I can really incorporate things I learned from this activity into my everyday teaching with this class. With so many athletes, their learning style seems to be more hands-on oriented. In planning lessons for this class, I'll try to incorporate a variety of hands-on activities that will help increase the effectiveness of the lessons and grasp students interests into what were doing. We did a slinky lab to model mechanical waves, and the students really responded well to this. Because of the secure learning environment that had been established by my cooperating teacher, I'll also incorporate a lot of groupwork/group activities into my lessons. I feel like students learn best when they can help each other construct their own learning, and working together is a characteristic that will not only help apply to science but anything that they may do outside of the classroom. Lastly, in my everyday lectures I'd like to use powerpoints to help give students notes and important definitions/concepts that may suppliment the activities we do. In these powerpoints, I am going to give students full sentences in which they'll need to pick out the important words and concepts from each sentence. At first, this is something we can work on together and I hope to gradually improve these note-taking skills of the students which will help them in all of their classes later on down the road.